“What I don’t choose; that’s enough. I don’t want to talk about it any more.”
Pyotr Stepanovitch controlled himself and changed the subject.
“To speak of something else,” he began, “will you be with us this evening? It’s Virginsky’s name-day; that’s the pretext for our meeting.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Do me a favour. Do come. You must. We must impress them by our number and our looks. You have a face . . . well, in one word, you have a fateful face.”
“You think so?” laughed Kirillov. “Very well, I’ll come, but not for the sake of my face. What time is it?”
“Oh, quite early, half-past six. And, you know, you can go in, sit down, and not speak to any one, however many there may be there. Only, I say, don’t forget to bring pencil and paper with you.”
“What’s that for?”
“Why, it makes no difference to you, and it’s my special request. You’ll only have to sit still, speaking to no one, listen, and sometimes seem to make a note. You can draw something, if you like.”
“What nonsense! What for?”
“Why, since it makes no difference to you! You keep saying that it’s just the same to you.”
“No, what for?”
“Why, because that member of the society, the inspector, has stopped at Moscow and I told some of them here that possibly the inspector may turn up to-night; and they’ll think that you are the inspector. And as you’ve been here three weeks already, they’ll be still more surprised.”
“Stage tricks. You haven’t got an inspector in Moscow.”
“Well, suppose I haven’t — damn him! — what business is that of yours and what bother will it be to you? You are a member of the society yourself.”
“Tell them I am the inspector; I’ll sit still and hold my tongue, but I won’t have the pencil and paper.”
“But why?”
“I don’t want to.”
Pyotr Stepanovitch was really angry; he turned positively green, but again he controlled himself. He got up and took his hat.
“Is that fellow with you?” he brought out suddenly, in a low voice.
“Yes.”
“That’s good. I’ll soon get him away. Don’t be uneasy.”
“I am not uneasy. He is only here at night. The old woman is in the hospital, her daughter-in-law is dead. I’ve been alone for the last two days. I’ve shown him the place in the paling where you can take a board out; he gets through, no one sees.”
“I’ll take him away soon.”
“He says he has got plenty of places to stay the night in.”
“That’s rot; they are looking for him, but here he wouldn’t be noticed. Do you ever get into talk with him?”
“Yes, at night. He abuses you tremendously. I’ve been reading the ‘Apocalypse’ to him at night, and we have tea. He listened eagerly, very eagerly, the whole night.”
“Hang it all, you’ll convert him to Christianity!”
“He is a Christian as it is. Don’t be uneasy, he’ll do the murder. Whom do you want to murder?”
“No, I don’t want him for that, I want him for something different. . . . And does Shatov know about Pedka?”
“I don’t talk to Shatov, and I don’t see him.”
“Is he angry?”
“No, we are not angry, only we shun one another. We lay too long side by side in America.”
“I am going to him directly.”
“As you like.”
“Stavrogin and I may come and see you from there, about ten o’clock.”
“Do.”
“I want to talk to him about something important. . . . I say, make me a present of your ball; what do you want with it now? I want it for gymnastics too. I’ll pay you for it if you like.”
“You can take it without.”
Pyotr Stepanovitch put the ball in the back pocket of his coat.
“But I’ll give you nothing against Stavrogin,” Kirillov muttered after his guest, as he saw him out. The latter looked at him in amazement but did not answer.
Kirillov’s last words perplexed Pyotr Stepanovitch extremely; he had not time yet to discover their meaning, but even while he was on the stairs of Shatov’s lodging he tried to remove all trace of annoyance and to assume an amiable expression. Shatov was at home and rather unwell. He was lying on his bed, though dressed.
“What bad luck!” Pyotr Stepanovitch cried out in the doorway. “Are you really ill?”
The amiable expression of his face suddenly vanished; there was a gleam of spite in his eyes.
“Not at all.” Shatov jumped up nervously. “I am not ill at all ... a little headache . . .”
He was disconcerted; the sudden appearance of such a visitor positively alarmed him.
“You mustn’t be ill for the job I’ve come about,” Pyotr Stepanovitch began quickly and, as it were, peremptorily. “Allow me to sit down.” (He sat down.) “And you sit down again on your bedstead; that’s right. There will be a party of our fellows at Virginsky’s to-night on the pretext of his birthday; it will have no political character, however — we’ve seen to that. I am coming with Nikolay Stavrogin. I would not, of course, have dragged you there, knowing your way of thinking at present . . . simply to save your being worried, not because we think you would betray us. But as things have turned out, you will have to go. You’ll meet there the very people with whom we shall finally settle how you are to leave the society and to whom you are to hand over what is in your keeping. We’ll do it without being noticed; I’ll take you aside into a corner; there’ll be a lot of people and there’s no need for every one to know. I must confess I’ve had to keep my tongue wagging on your behalf; but now I believe they’ve agreed, on condition you hand over the printing press and all the papers, of course. Then you can go where you please.”
Shatov listened, frowning and resentful. The nervous alarm of a moment before had entirely left him.
“I don’t acknowledge any sort of obligation to give an account to the devil knows whom,” he declared definitely. “No one has the authority to set me free.”
“Not quite so. A great deal has been entrusted to you. You hadn’t the right to break off simply. Besides, you made no clear statement about it, so that you put them in an ambiguous position.”
“I stated my position clearly by letter as soon as I arrived here.”
“No, it wasn’t clear,” Pyotr Stepanovitch retorted calmly. “I sent you ‘A Noble Personality’ to be printed here, and meaning the copies to be kept here till they were wanted; and the two manifestoes as well. You returned them with an ambiguous letter which explained nothing.”
“I refused definitely to print them.”
“Well, not definitely. You wrote that you couldn’t, but you didn’t explain for what reason. ‘I can’t’ doesn’t mean’ I don’t want to.’ It might be supposed that you were simply unable through circumstances. That was how they took it, and considered that you still meant to keep up your connection with the society, so that they might have entrusted something to you again and so have compromised themselves. They say here that you simply meant to deceive them, so that you might betray them when you got hold of something important. I have defended you to the best of my powers, and have shown your brief note as evidence in your favour. But I had to admit on rereading those two lines that they were misleading and not conclusive.”
“You kept that note so carefully then?”
“My keeping it means nothing; I’ve got it still.”
“Well, I don’t care, damn it!” Shatov cried furiously. “Your fools may consider that I’ve betrayed them if they like — -what is it to me? I should like to see what you can do to me?”
“Your name would be noted, and at the first success of the revolution you would be hanged.”
“That’s when you get the upper hand and dominate Russia?”
“You needn’t laugh. I tell you again, I-stood up for you. Anyway, I advise you to turn up to-day. Why wast
e words through false pride? Isn’t it better to part friends? In any case you’ll have to give up the printing press and the old type and papers — that’s what we must talk about.”
“I’ll come,” Shatov muttered, looking down thoughtfully.
Pyotr Stepanovitch glanced askance at him from his place.
“Will Stavrogin be there?” Shatov asked suddenly, raising his head.
“He is certain to be.”
“Ha ha!”
Again they were silent for a minute. Shatov grinned disdainfully and irritably.
“And that contemptible ‘Noble Personality’ of yours, that I wouldn’t print here. Has it been printed?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“To make the schoolboys believe that Herzen himself had written it in your album?”
“Yes, Herzen himself.”
Again they were silent for three minutes. At last Shatov got up from the bed.
“Go out of my room; I don’t care to sit with you.”
“I’m going,” Pyotr Stepanovitch brought out with positive alacrity, getting up at once. “Only one word: Kirillov is quite alone in the lodge now, isn’t he, without a servant?”
“Quite alone. Get along; I can’t stand being in the same room with you.”
“Well, you are a pleasant customer now!” Pyotr Stepanovitch reflected gaily as he went out into the street, “and you will be pleasant this evening too, and that just suits me; nothing better could be wished, nothing better could be wished! The Russian God Himself seems helping me.”
VII
He had probably been very busy that day on all sorts of errands and probably with success, which was reflected in the self-satisfied expression of his face when at six o’clock that evening he turned ‘up at Stavrogin’s. But he was not at once admitted: Stavrogin had just locked himself in the study with Mavriky Nikolaevitch. This news instantly made Pyotr Stepanovitch anxious. He seated himself close to the study door to wait for the visitor to go away. He could hear conversation but could not catch the words. The visit did not last long; soon he heard a noise, the sound of an extremely loud and abrupt voice, then the door opened and Mavriky Nikolaevitch came out with a very pale face. He did not notice Pyotr Stepanovitch, and quickly passed by. Pyotr Stepanovitch instantly ran into the study.
I cannot omit a detailed account of the very brief interview that had taken place between the two “rivals” — an interview which might well have seemed impossible under the circumstances, but which had yet taken place..
This is how it had come about. Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch had been enjoying an after-dinner nap on the couch in his study when Alexey Yegorytch had announced the unexpected visitor. Hearing the name, he had positively leapt up, unwilling to believe it. But soon a smile gleamed on his lips — a smile of haughty triumph and at the same time of a blank, incredulous wonder. The visitor, Mavriky Nikolaevitch, seemed struck by the expression of that smile as he came in; anyway, he stood still in the middle of the room as though uncertain whether to come further in or to turn back. Stavrogin succeeded at once in transforming the expression of his face, and with an air of grave surprise took a step towards him. The visitor did not take his outstretched hand, but awkwardly moved a chair and, not uttering a word, sat down without waiting for his host to do so. Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch sat down on the sofa facing him obliquely and, looking at Mavriky Nikolaevitch, waited in silence.
“If you can, marry Lizaveta Nikolaevna,” Mavriky Nikolaevitch brought out suddenly at last, and what was most curious, it was impossible to tell from his tone whether it was an entreaty, a recommendation, a surrender, or a command.
Stavrogin still remained silent, but the visitor had evidently said all he had come to say and gazed at him persistently, waiting for an answer.
“If I am not mistaken (but it’s quite certain), Lizaveta Nikolaevna is already betrothed to you,” Stavrogin said at last.
“Promised and betrothed,” Mavriky Nikolaevitch assented firmly and clearly.
“You have . . . quarrelled? Excuse me, Mavriky Nikolaevitch.”
“No, she ‘loves and respects me’; those are her words. Her words are more precious than anything.”
“Of that there can be no doubt.”
“But let me tell you, if she were standing in the church at her wedding and you were to call her, she’d give up me and every one and go to you.”
“From the wedding?”
“Yes, and after the wedding.”
“Aren’t you making a mistake?”
“No. Under her persistent, sincere, and intense hatred for you love is flashing out at every moment . . . and madness . . . the sincerest infinite love and . . . madness! On the contrary, behind the love she feels for me, which is sincere too, every moment there are flashes of hatred . . . the most intense hatred! I could never have fancied all these transitions . . . before.”
“But I wonder, though, how could you come here and dispose of the hand of Lizaveta Nikolaevna? Have you the right to do so? Has she authorised you?”
Mavriky Nikolaevitch frowned and for a minute he looked down.
“That’s all words on your part,” he brought out suddenly, “words of revenge and triumph; I am sure you can read between the lines, and is this the time for petty vanity? Haven’t you satisfaction enough? Must I really dot my i’s and go into it all? Very well, I will dot my i’s, if you are so anxious for my humiliation. I have no right, it’s impossible for me to be authorised; Lizaveta Nikolaevna knows nothing about it and her betrothed has finally lost his senses and is only fit for a madhouse, and, to crown everything, has come to tell you so himself. You are the only man in the world who can make her happy, and I am the one to make her unhappy. You are trying to get her, you are pursuing her, but — I don’t know why — you won’t marry her. If it’s because of a lovers’ quarrel abroad and I must be sacrificed to end it, sacrifice me. She is too unhappy and I can’t endure it. My words are not a sanction, not a prescription, and so it’s no slur on your pride. If you care to take my place at the altar, you can do it without any sanction from me, and there is no ground for me to come to you with a mad proposal, especially as our marriage is utterly impossible after the step I am taking now. I cannot lead her to the altar feeling myself an abject wretch. What I am doing here and my handing her over to you, perhaps her bitterest foe, is to my mind something so abject that I shall never get over it.”
“Will you shoot yourself on our wedding day?”
“No, much later. Why stain her bridal dress with my blood? Perhaps I shall not shoot myself at all, either now or later.”
“I suppose you want to comfort me by saying that?”
“You? What would the blood of one more mean to you?” He turned pale and his eyes gleamed. A minute of silence followed.
“Excuse me for the questions I’ve asked you,” Stavrogin began again; “some of them I had no business to ask you, but one of them I think I have every right to put to you. Tell me, what facts have led you to form a conclusion as to my feelings for Lizaveta Nikolaevna? I mean to a conviction of a degree of feeling on my part as would justify your coming here . . . and risking such a proposal.”
“What?” Mavriky Nikolaevitch positively started. “Haven’t you been trying to win her? Aren’t you trying to win her, and don’t you want to win her?”
“Generally speaking, I can’t speak of my feeling for this woman or that to a third person or to anyone except the woman herself. You must excuse it, it’s a constitutional peculiarity. But to make up for it, I’ll tell you the truth about everything else; I am married, and it’s impossible for me either to marry or to try ‘to win’ anyone.”
Mavriky Nikolaevitch was so astounded that he started back in his chair and for some time stared fixedly into Stavrogin’s face.
“Only fancy, I never thought of that,” he muttered. “You said then, that morning, that you were not married . . . and so I believed you were not married.”
He turned terribly pale; suddenly he
brought his fist down on the table with all his might.
“If after that confession you don’t leave Lizaveta Nikolaevna alone, if you make her unhappy, I’ll kill you with my stick like a dog in a ditch!”
He jumped up and walked quickly out of the room. Pyotr Stepanovitch, running in, found his host in a most unexpected frame of mind.
“Ah, that’s you!” Stavrogin laughed loudly; his laughter seemed to be provoked simply by the appearance of Pyotr Stepanovitch as he ran in with such impulsive curiosity.
“Were you listening at the door? Wait a bit. What have you come about? I promised you something, didn’t I? Ah, bah! I remember, to meet ‘our fellows.’ Let us go. I am delighted. You couldn’t have thought of anything more appropriate.” He snatched up his hat and they both went at once out of the house.
“Are you laughing beforehand at the prospect of seeing ‘our fellows’?” chirped gaily Pyotr Stepanovitch, dodging round him with obsequious alacrity, at one moment trying to walk beside his companion on the narrow brick pavement and at the next running right into the mud of the road; for Stavrogin walked in the middle of the pavement without observing that he left no room for anyone else.
“I am not laughing at all,” he answered loudly and gaily; “on the contrary, I am sure that you have the most serious set of people there.”
“‘Surly dullards,’ as you once deigned to express it.”
“Nothing is more amusing sometimes than a surly dullard.”
“Ah, you mean Mavriky Nikolaevitch ‘? I am convinced he came to give up his betrothed to you, eh? I egged him on to do it, indirectly, would you believe it? And if he doesn’t give her up, we’ll take her, anyway, won’t we — eh?”
Pyotr Stepanovitch knew no doubt that he was running some risk in venturing on such sallies, but when he was excited he preferred to risk anything rather than to remain in uncertainty. Stavrogin only laughed.
“You still reckon you’ll help me?” he asked. “If you call me. But you know there’s one way, and the best one.”
“Do I know your way?”
“Oh no, that’s a secret for the time. Only remember, a secret has its price.”
“I know what it costs,” Stavrogin muttered to himself, but he restrained himself and was silent.
Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky Page 399